Last week I got to spend some time watching Far Cry 2’s creative director explode a whole lot of things and show off the game’s impressive new engine.

I didn’t actually get any hands-on time with it, but the scale and scope of FC2 is an achievement in itself. The game world is 50 square kilometers, and the draw distance is about 1 km.

There’s none of the science fiction of the previous game, but Ubisoft doesn’t think that will deter potential buyers. Especially since there’s a plethora of neat little gimmicks like weapon malfunctions, the ability to repair equipment and perform a truncated kind of first aid on yourself (it generally involves pulling shards of bloody debris from under your skin).

Far Cry 2’s engine is adaptive enough for it to be used in consoles without an excessive amount of hassle. As such, the game will launch simultaneously on PC, 360 and PS3 in the early fall.